


Three's a Crowd

by Quaxo



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, F/M, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-11
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-08 07:53:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1130172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quaxo/pseuds/Quaxo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony and Rhodey have a kid together, even if they're just friends.  Steve tries to find where he fits in the family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three's a Crowd

Tooth Fairy mythology cobbled together from Terry Pratchett and Norse traditions. :D

****

It doesn't truly sink in who Annie's father is until he comes back from a meeting with the heads of WSC and Director Fury one evening to find Colonel Rhodes sitting on the penthouse couch. Annie -- damp but wrapped snugly in her fluffy green Tinkerbell bathrobe -- is sitting patiently between his knees, reading aloud from 'Best Word Book Ever', while the Colonel gently rubs moisturizing cream into Annie's hair, forming thick coils in each section. It's something he's seen Tony do a hundred times before after she gives Annie her bath.

Tony had been upfront about the fact that Rhodes was Annie's father when they first started dating. It had been a mutual arrangement by the two of them to have a child together, she'd said -- they weren't getting any younger, they were both too busy with their careers to find a serious partner, and 'we'd just escaped being killed by a platoon of killer robots so it just seemed like as good a time as any, really'. 

"Hey, Cap," Rhodes calls out over Annie's shriek of 'Steeb!!', managing to pin her with his knees before she can squirm away. "And you, Missy, indoor voice. When I'm done with your hair then you can go see Steve, okay?"

"M'kay," Annie pouts, leaning back against the couch. 

It seemed so strange to hear another man chide Annie -- that was normally Steve's job. It irritated him, he realized as he hung up his jacket and started to take off his boots. He was the one who normally disciplined Annie. Tony did so on occasion, but it always made her nervous that she'd go too far, and she tended to be more upset by having to punish Annie than Annie was at being punished. Rhodes had just presumed -- Except Rhodes is Annie's real father -- Steve is the interloper here. 

"Hey babe, why the long face," Tony asks before leaning in to kiss his cheek. She's damp -- Annie's bathtime routine normally leaves you wet enough that you might as well take a shower and finish the job. She's wearing her lavender silk robe over a thin camisole, and matching silk pants. 

"Nothing, just a long day," He mutters as he pushes the scattered pairs of shoes back together with one foot. One pair of tiny hot pink Converses, a larger black pair of Converses, a pair of brown loafers size 11, and his black combat boots all sit in an orderly row along the wall from smallest to largest. He feels a wicked gleam of pride that his shoes are at the very end.

"Talk about it later?" she gives him a brief peck on the cheek before she joins Rhodes on the couch. They're a family -- mother, father, and child, tied by blood. Steve's not even sure where he fits in this picture -- Tony and he aren't married, neither of them are ready for it -- and there's nothing that really ties them -- him to them.

He takes a seat in the chair opposite the couch, watching the two of them sitting side by side -- it's rare that he sees Tony so relaxed as she is when she's with Rhodes. He'd like to think she feels that way around him too...

"You're using too much cream."

"Excuse me, you've been using too little! She can't show up to my mother's house with hair drier than a desert."

"It's not that bad."

There's a significant look between Rhodey and Tony, an almost palpable battle of wills between the two, before Tony huffs a sigh and gives in. "Fine, I'll use enough cream to make a cow cringe, if it makes you happy."

What if Rhodes ever changed his mind -- decided to marry the mother of his child some day? Would Tony say no? How could she say no -- he'd fathered her child, they'd been friends since they were teenagers -- He may be Captain America, but even he can't beat 20 years of friendship and a child. She'd be crazy if she turned him down, wouldn't she? 

"Aaannnddd done," Rhodes announces as he pulls the silk nightcap down over Annie's head, and then loosens his hold. 

"Steeb! I lost a tooth, look," Annie announces proudly as she crawls into his lap, barely missing kneeing him in the groin. She down on her bottom lip to reveal a little gap in the neat row of tiny white teeth. "I was eatin an apple and it just popped right out! Dad said I had to put it under my pillow so the tooth fairy can come get it."

"Your Dad's right --" A glance at the clock shows that it's almost Annie's bedtime -- especially since she and Rhodes are heading out in the morning to visit his parents in Pittsburgh. "And you'd better get to bed soon -- she can't come if you're not sleeping."

Annie raises an eyebrow and looks at him skeptically -- almost identical to her mother's. 

"How do you know -- do you know the tooth fairy?"

"I do," he says trying to look as earnest as possible.

"Really," Annie eyes him suspiciously still, "What's she look like then? How did you meet her? And what does she want with my tooth..."

He knows Annie's just wheedling for extra time -- Steve doesn't think there's a kid on earth who likes going to bed, no matter how tired. But Tony and Rhodes have gone to put away Annie's hair products and clean up, so Steve's willing to let her get away with it for now. 

"Well, the tooth fairy is about this big," he holds up his index finger and thumb just an inch apart in front of Annie's nose, "and has pretty brown skin just like you. She wears a pale blue dress with matching silk slippers, and wears her hair in a bun. It won't get in the way then, you see, when she has to crawl under pillows all night if she wears it in a bun. She flies using her sparkly wings that are almost see-though, but when the light hits them just right they glitter with all the colors of the rainbow..." He adjusts his hold as Annie relaxes against his chest, her head lying on his shoulder. He figures he's got another five minutes before she's completely out for the night. "She leaves the money under your pillow right where you left the tooth, to let you know she was there and she's got your tooth in safekeeping. She then takes the tooth back to her castle where she files it away carefully in a drawer. Finally, she writes your name and the date in her giant book that contains the names of every person who's ever lost a tooth, and writes down exactly where it is. Baby teeth are special you see -- they bring good luck to you, when you're in trouble, if you keep them all together and that's what the tooth fairy does, keep them all together in a safe spot for you, just in case you ever need them. You just call out for her help and she'll find your name in the book and bring them to you. One time some bad guys stole..." He lets the words drift off as he feels drool on his collarbone. 

He maneuvers himself slowly into a standing position, holding her tight as he dares to his chest. He spies Tony and Rhodes standing at the entrance of the hallway. 

They follow him as he takes Annie back to the bedroom and tucks her carefully into bed. He's the first to leave though, letting Annie's parents say their own 'good night's.

Annie may not be his child by blood -- but he can't really visualize a life without her in it, at least not one as good as he currently has. 

"You almost had me believing in the tooth fairy for a second there," Rhodey whispers as he shuts the door behind Tony and himself. 

"You could write children's books," Tony comes over and wraps her arm around his, leaning against him. "So what's the going rate on teeth now a days? Twenty bucks?"

"Twenty bucks!?" He and Rhodes manage to say in unison. 

"More like a dollar --"

"More like a dime --"

"Steve, you can't even buy a pack of gum anymore for a dime," Tony teases, bumping her shoulder against his. "And she'd probably put it up her nose. Not that you can buy much for a dollar either..."

"She doesn't need twenty dollars -- she's five! A dollar is more than enough--"

"It's supposed to be a good luck token," Steve adds, "It's not supposed to be about the money." 

The other two pause at that, looking at him carefully, and Steve fears for a second he's overstepped some boundary, but soon they both agree that a coin to use as a token is the best idea. 

They end up spending a half hour digging around various drawers trying to find a coin suitable before Rhodes stumbles upon a Kennedy half-dollar in a side table. Steve is then roped into writing a letter from the tooth fairy ('you've got the prettiest handwriting of the three of us') congratulating Annie on taking good care of her teeth and reminding her to floss after every meal. It's short work to steal the tooth, and put the letter and the coin in its place. 

"Well, that was fun, but I'm turning in now," Rhodes yawns. 

"'Night," Tony replies as she places the tooth in a box on the bookshelf where she's been secrets away with the rest of mementos like a piece of hair from Annie's first haircut and her old rattle and pacifier.

He settles back down into his chair, and after a moment Tony perches herself half on the arm of the chair and half in his lap. 

"Good job with that story tonight -- it was nice," She murmurs, curling in towards him, fingers coming up to play with the collar of his t-shirt. "So, how was the meeting?"

"They're flogging the same dead horse -- the WSC wants to dictate which operations we take, SHIELD wants the same but will give us a little more leeway, and there I am telling them that the Avengers aren't going to be anyone's attack dog. We'll be there when we're needed, but they can leave us out of any of their black-op games. Even if we've got two of their top spies on our roster. Just like I told them at the last five meetings."

Tony makes a sympathetic hum, "So, they're being dicks -- what a surprise."

"Pretty much."

"You'll get it through to them eventually... or at least outlast them in a staring competition."

"I hope so."

They sit there quietly for what feels like an age -- Tony's tailbone is starting to dig painfully into his thigh and he feel the quiet puff of her breath through t-shirt. 

"If Rhodey asked you to marry him, would you?"

As soon as the words leave his lips he regrets them -- why had he said it at all? It must have been all the silence... Tony pushes herself up so that she can look him directly in the eye, her eyebrow raised as brown eyes appraise him. 

"Rhodey and I would kill each other inside a month if we were married to each other. We barely survived living together in college -- he'd say that it was mostly my fault, but that's a damn lie I'll have you know. Oh the stories I could tell... Not that he'd ask me to marry him anyway. Not that I'd accept -- We don't feel that way about each other --"

"You felt that way long enough to create Annie."

"We're not blind you know," Tony snorts, "I'm pretty damn hot if I do say so, which I do, and Rhodey isn't bad either. Just because we used to screw around with each other doesn't mean anything -- I'd say he's like a brother to me, but that makes it sound kind of like incest. We're just two good friends... we both wanted a kid, insert tab A into slot B et voila, a baby is made, end of story." She pulls away, moving to sit on the ottoman in front of his knees. "Mind telling me what brought this on?"

"Nothing," he says, but that just gets him another raised eyebrow. "I just thought -- you, him, and Annie looked so right together on the couch tonight and I..." He can't make himself say any more. It sounds childish -- petulant even -- that he should complain about her and Annie spending time together with Rhodes because it made him feel uncomfortable. He ought to get a grip on himself. 

Tony is worryingly quiet for a moment, lips pursed as she stares at some space behind him. 

"Sometimes I wonder why you don't run away from me screaming -- I mean I'm hard enough to live with in the first place, adding in a kid and my very involved baby daddy seems like too much to ask of anyone. I want you here, Steve. Annie fucking adores you. Rhodey's just grateful I've got someone keeping me from running head first into disaster." Her eyes meet his, searching, "We want you here, Steve, if you want to be."

"I do," He reaches out to clasp her hands in his. 

"Good," Tony says, nodding to herself as she stands and pulls them back towards their bedroom. "Now, let's go to bed so we can think of all things we can get up to now we're going to be kid-free for a whole month."

"We're going to stop in and visit her though -- aren't we?"

"Of course -- Grandma Marilyn is going to spoil her rotten if we don't intercede."

"I'm pretty sure its too late for that -- and that wasn't Marilyn's fault."

"You hush -- you're one to talk. Annie's got you around her finger just as bad as the rest of us, don't bother to deny it."

"I don't."

"Good," Tony says, her lips pulling into a crooked grin as she leans back against their bedroom, body relaxed and inviting. "Now c'mere, I've got idea on the first thing we can do when we're kid-free."

Steve follows her as she slips into their bedroom, pausing only for a moment to lock the door behind him, before joining her in their bed. 

Right where he belongs.


End file.
